The road to the Final Four ended with one step in the wrong direction.
“It was just a sense of disbelief, initially,” said UNC’s Jae’Lyn Withers, who took that one single misstep. “Following that, of course, upset.”
After battling back from a 14-11 record that had UNC miles from NCAA Tournament consideration 32 days ago, the Tar Heels were on the verge of earning a spot in the field. They’d won six straight games to put themselves in position. All they needed was a win over an impressive opponent—like Duke.
They misfired in their first attempt, last weekend, falling by 13 at home, and the NCAA bubble appeared to have popped. However, two wins in the ACC Tournament, as well as losses by a host of other bubble teams, gave UNC a second chance at the Blue Devils, and another shot at a bid.
Once again, though, all seemed lost, when the Blue Devils went up 24 points in Friday’s ACC Tournament semifinal.
The Tar Heels battled through adversity, though, cutting into the lead until they went to the free throw line for two shots, down 72-71 with 4.1 seconds left.
Two free throws separated UNC from its first lead in nearly 39 minutes. Two free throws and a few seconds were all that were keeping the Tar Heels from an NCAA bid and a win over hated Duke.
At the line was Ven-Allen Lubin, who scored 12 of his game-high 20 points during the second-half rally.
His first shot was off the mark. Still, UNC could tie the game with his second shot, then play for overtime. Lubin’s shot was true and swished through the net. The scoreboard added the point to UNC’s score: It was a 72-72 tie.
Except, it wasn’t.
Just before Lubin released the ball, Withers slid his foot forward. It moved about four inches, and he immediately pulled it back. But that was enough to enter the lane and break a seldom-seen rule of the sport: The players have to wait until the free throw is released before they can move forward to try to get a rebound.
“It’s rare,” Withers said. “Definitely rare.”
It was also costly. The whistle blew while the ball was still in the air. The shot didn’t count. The point came off the scoreboard, and four seconds later, Duke was celebrating a 74-71 win.
“I guess you could say I just mistimed the shot,” Withers said. “I was just trying to make sure I crashed hard to secure a rebound in case he did miss.”
“I’m not sure that’s happened before,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer. “I’m trying to think back. I’m not sure in that setting, in that situation, where you saw that.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before, especially up one,” said Kon Knueppel, who scored 17 to lead Duke. “That was very interesting. But yeah, we were obviously pretty happy. They didn’t even get a shot at tying it.”
Withers was crushed after the game, holding a towel over his head as he left the floor.
His teammates refused to blame him for the miscue.
“We had that game,” Seth Trimble said, “but I’m not bashing J-Wit. I missed three free throws.”
“I missed two free throws,” added point guard Elliot Cadeau. “Ven-Allen missed the one right before that.”
Coach Hubert Davis stood beside his player, literally, as Withers met the media.
With Withers’ arm draped over the coach’s shoulders, Davis said, “We’re a team. UNC basketball team. We win together. We lose together. The great thing about this group is we do it together. We all make mistakes. I’m an imperfect person, and that qualifies me to be an imperfect coach. So many things we did today well. Some things, we didn’t do well, and that took us to the point that we fell three points short.”
Now, Duke moves on to the ACC Championship game and a likely top seed in the NCAAs. UNC has to wait until Sunday to see if they did enough to impress the selection committee, or if they fell just short—just one step short.
“As far as moving forward, thinking back on it, it’s hard to really let it go in one and out the other, move onto the next thing, given the end result,” said Withers. “I’m not too pleased about the end result, but I’m definitely proud of this team.”
